DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — A suspected U.S. missile strike on the house of a Taliban commander near the Afghan border killed up to 20 people today, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
Missile strikes into Pakistan’s border region have escalated sharply in recent months, as American commanders have complained that Pakistani forces are not putting enough pressure on militants in strongholds on their territory.
Today’s reported strike occurred in the South Waziristan region, part of Pakistan’s wild border zone that is considered a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media, said the targeted house in Mandata Raghzai village belonged to a lieutenant of local Taliban chief Maulvi Nazir.
The officials, citing reports from agents and informers in the area, said militants cordoned off the scene and the identity of the victims was not immediately clear.
U.S. military and CIA drones that patrol the frontier region are believed to have carried out at least a dozen missile strikes since August. The United States rarely confirms or denies involvement in the attacks.
Pakistani leaders have protested the strikes as an unacceptable violation of the country’s sovereignty and argue that the attacks only fuel Islamic extremism in the region.
Separately, Taliban fighters who tried unsuccessfully to kidnap a tribal militia leader beheaded one of the man’s rescuers in front of a crowd, then fought a running battle with tribesmen on Sunday that left as many as 30 people dead, police said.
The assailants grabbed militia chief Pir Samiullah at his home in the Swat region and were hustling him to a getaway car when dozens of local tribesmen confronted them and snatched him back, regional police chief Dilawar Bangash said.
Bangash said hundreds of Taliban later returned, seized three members of the militia and beheaded one of them on a road before a large crowd.
The militias, known as lashkars, have been compared to the so-called awakening councils that have helped U.S. forces turn the tables against al-Qaida in Iraq. Pakistan’s government has cited them as proof it can root out militants waging an insurgency in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
At the beheading, Taliban commander Mullah Shamsher told onlookers “this was a lesson for anyone who tried to oppose them,” Bangash said, citing witnesses. The militia gathered men from the surrounding area who engaged the Taliban in an hours-long gunbattle.
Bangash said 20 militants including Shamsher, six militiamen and four bystanders were killed and another police official said several tribesmen were reported missing.
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